James Spencer Jr. oversees the business incubator program for Rensselaer Polytechnic… more

Donna Abbott-Vlahos

The move is noteworthy following Rensselaer’s decision in 2010 to scrap its pioneering bricks-and-mortar incubator. It was legendary in the business community for giving rise to some of the headline companies in the Capital Region since it opened in 1980.

James Spencer Jr., the man running the incubator, says it will soon have a bigger presence in downtown Troy.

It was the lack of a physical incubator, however, that attracted Spencer to the job last summer.

“It was very controversial when we closed the incubator. We’d been first in so many areas, why would we seemingly want to move backward?” Spencer said in an interview.

“I was excited to work for a program that said, ‘We’ll remove the crutch of the building,’” Spencer says. “We did not want to rely on sticking companies in a building, charging below-market rent, letting classes come in to visit. That’s all good, don’t get me wrong. Having a building helps. But that is not really incubation at its core.”

Spencer, in his mid-40s, served in a similar role for years at the University of Central Florida. Before that, he sold his robotics company for an undisclosed price. Customers included Nike and Ford, he says. He raised $7 million in venture funding in five years.

Rensselaer’s incubator focuses on two things, Spencer says. One is validating technology, making sure it does what the customer needs. The other is finding those customers in the first place.

“We’re trying to compress what would be a two- or three-year exploration down to two or three months,” Spencer says. “This forces ourselves to be much more deliberate about actually helping incubator companies.”

Spencer says he will “very soon” open new offices. They’ll be accessible to entrepreneurs and startups to do very specific things, Spencer says, without elaborating.

The options include the renovated Chasan building in downtown Troy, which already holds the offices for Rensselaer’s fundraising staff.

Another potential site is the historic Proctor’s theater, which is being rehabbed right now.

The incubator currently has a small office in the Rice building downtown. Spencer could be taking over more space there, too.

Regardless, Rensselaer will be trying to find companies like the ones its old incubator churned out, before it was closed. Among the biggest success stories were: Video game developer Vicarious Visions, MapInfo mapping-software company and Albany Molecular Research Inc., which discovered the active ingredient in the allergy medication Allegra.